British Olympic Foundation

About us

The British Olympic Foundation (BOF) is the charitable arm of the British Olympic Association, responsible for the development of the Olympic Movement, its ideals and values and encouraging participation in and awareness of Olympic sport within the UK.

The Foundation aims to create learning opportunities for young people through sport as well as education to encourage personal development, fair play and personal excellence. With a variety of initiatives including an an education programme, sports camps, workshops, conferences, international exchanges and educational resources, the BOF aims to touch young people's lives with the Olympic dream from primary through to university level students.

The Board

Our Programmes

Get Set

Get Set is the Olympic and Paralympic youth engagement programme, delivered by the British Olympic Foundation and British Paralympic Association as part of the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Building on the achievements of the programme before the London 2012 Games, Get Set supports approximately 24,000 schools and youth groups across the UK to continue their work on the Olympic and Paralympic Values and use the power of the Games to inspire children and young people, helping them to fulfil their potential.

Get Set aims to use the power of sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Values to:

- Inspire young people to understand and live the Olympic Values (friendship, excellence, respect) and Paralympic Values (inspiration, determination, courage and quality)

- Build excitement, advocacy and support for: Team GB; ParalympicsGB; the Olympic and Paralympic Games and Winter Games; the Youth Olympic Games; and other Olympic and Paralympic events

- Inspire all young people to fulfil their potential and lead healthy, active lifestyles

Through Get Set, schools have access to an engaging digital platform (www.getset.co.uk) featuring flexible, cross-curricular resources linked to the Olympic and Paralympic Values. These include facts, activity and project ideas, images and films which use the inspiration of the Games to help teachers bring the Values to life and encourage students to apply them in their everyday lives. The flexible resources can be used by students of all abilities and learning styles.

Over the next three years the programme’s key focus will be the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games helping to build excitement for the Games and drive support of Team GB and ParalympicsGB.

In addition to regular new online resources and digital content, there are four key deliverables:

- Digital assemblies, themed, engaging and interactive presentations featuring film clips from Team GB/ParalympicsGB athletes and exclusive images, information and activity suggestions.
Get Set Beacons will initiate local projects or run local events during 2019 that will help their community to lead healthy lifestyles and participate in physical activity and build excitement about Team GB and ParalympicsGB.
- Starting in 2019, the summer of Get Set’s 10th anniversary year, Get Set Week aims to encourage young people to be active and show support for Team GB and ParalympicsGB. Get Set Week will be supported by online resources to help schools plan and deliver activities.
- Travel to Tokyo will follow the popular Road to Rio challenge, which saw young people across the country work in teams to virtually travel the distance to Rio using their choice of physical activity. The initiative saw nearly 2,000 teams travel from London to Rio amounting an incredible distance of 100 million kilometres virtually travelled Young people will again work in teams to travel the distance from London to Tokyo, encouraging them to get active and to explore more about the culture of the host city. Young people will be encouraged to try new and different sports as they journey to Japan.

Adjoining Get Set are the Get Set + programmes, these include:

Get Set to Eat Fresh, in partnership with Aldi launched in October 2015. The programme is for 7–14 year olds and supports the learning about nutrition, cooking and healthy eating. Get Set to Eat Fresh uses Team GB athletes to help students understand how healthy, fresh food powers us all to perform at our best. The programme has over 8,500 registered teachers and has reached over 780,000 young people in the short time it has been running. www.getseteatfresh.co.uk
Think Real (Sport England) – The Think Real campaign will launch in September 2018 and will inspire young people, sporty or not, to make good personal choices when taking part in physical activity, building a healthy attitude to nutrition, recovery (including sleep) and healthy training/anti-doping. Working with partners including Sport England, UKAD, UK Sport and NGBs the campaign acknowledges the recommendations of the Tailored Review of UK Anti-Doping, specifically point 20 about creating a values based programme focusing on ‘healthy training’ and also the Duty of Care in Sport Review (2017) around providing information to schools and support talented young athletes who are trying to balance education and being on a talent pathway.

Get Set for the Spirit of Sport, funded by UKAD lunched in October 2015. Young people learn about the values of sport and the rules or guiding principles which govern clean sport around the world. It challenges young people to consider their behaviour, and the behaviours of others, and to make the right decisions on and off the field of play.

Set to Ace It, in partnership with the Tennis Foundation, launched in January 2016 and is for children age 7–15 years the programme uses tennis and the Olympic and Paralympic Values to help improve knowledge, skills and confidence in key curriculum subjects by using physical activity to make learning more enjoyable, memorable and fun.

NGB Portal, by working closely with our National Governing Bodies we have a section on the website where we are able to promote opportunities and programmes being run by each sport.

National Olympic Academy (NOA)

The aim of the NOA is to bring together a variety of individuals from various sporting backgrounds and to disseminate information whilst encouraging discussion on current issues affecting the Olympic Movement and sport, both nationally and internationally.

Those invited to attend the NOA are; Higher Education Institutions - PE Departments, National Olympic Committee members, Athletes Commission members and past participants of the NOA. The majority of participants are usually comprised of university students, lecturers, athletes, coaches and sports administrators.

The NOA provides the framework for an intellectual/academic forum in relation to the Olympic Movement. Presentations are given by leading experts, senior lecturers, and international sportsmen and women. Participants have the opportunity to share their ideas in discussion groups, from which a report is produced on their findings.

Olympic Day Run

The Olympic Day Run was first launched by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1987 with a view to encouraging all National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to celebrate ‘Olympic Day’ - the anniversary of the founding of the IOC on 23 June 1894. The Olympic Day Run concept was originally proposed by the IOC’s Sport for All Commission, whose specific aim is to encourage mass participation in sport.

The BOF manages the Olympic Day Run through the Get Set Programme, incentivising schools to take part by offering T-shirts and resources to enable them to run a successful event.